till you come back home
by Jade Sabre
Summary: "Welcome aboard, Major." Kaidan returns to the Normandy, and Shepard tries to remember how to breathe. A 2016 Mass Effect Holiday Cheer fic for densrl.


**Title:** till you come back home  
 **Author:** Jade Sabre

 **Notes:** Squeezing it in under the wire, here's my 2016 Mass Effect Holiday Cheer gift fic for densrl! They said they and their Shepard loooooooooooooooove Kaidan, so here is five thousand words of Kaidan coming back aboard the _Normandy_ in Mass Effect 3. Not quite a holiday theme, but still brimming with the excitement of the season. I hope you enjoy! :-)

Thanks as always to loquaciousquark for being my fabulous patient beta who doesn't ship any of the same things I do.

* * *

He's aboard her ship.

Shepard leans her head back against the elevator wall and blows out a long breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding, a breath she's been holding since...Horizon, maybe, or the first time she heard he'd be on Horizon, or—and she doesn't want to think it, but the thought comes anyway—maybe it's that last desperate gasp of air she'd taken and held as the rest of her oxygen vented into space, as her vision went dark and his face flashed across her dying neurons as the last thing she'd ever see.

Until she woke up again.

He's aboard her ship.

And this time it's _her_ ship, not Cerberus's, although the ship is also EDI and EDI belongs to herself. She remembers lying awake and wondering if the AI was aware of every nut and bolt in the ship's construction, if there was anywhere aboard truly free from the Illusive Man's grip and gaze. If there was anything in her life that still belonged to her, that hadn't been touched or tainted or twisted or _modified_ for some other end. If she'd ever be free, or if she'd spend the rest of her life throwing herself against the invisible bars of her cage in the hopes that eventually they'd bend.

Miranda had bent. Jacob too. EDI had been unshackled. No cage is permanent, not even one locked millennia before her birth.

And her heart is still her own, to give away freely as she decides. The Illusive Man may have set it to beating again, but even he could not dictate its choice.

(Never mind how long ago the choice was made.)

(It still feels like only a day or week or month ago—like a lifetime, though really it's been two. Every heartbeat chooses anew. Every choice is the same.)

He's aboard her ship.

The door to her cabin slides open and a shockwave of giddiness and terror slams into her and steals her breath; she staggers to her chair and sinks into it, shedding layers of armor and adrenaline until the post-mission fatigue leaves her more a puddle than a woman at her desk, muscles and limbs refusing to do more than flop weakly at her command. She lolls her head to the side—her bed would really be a more comfortable place to collapse, this was a horrible mistake—and her eye catches on the photo on her desk. She still has a picture of him on her desk. Is that normal, or embarrassing? What will he think, when he sees it? _If_ he sees it—well, everyone's wandered up to her quarters at some point or another, but that's not what she means and her traitorous brain knows it.

She is a grown woman and she is a professional and there is a _war_ on for the sake of the galaxy and she is _not_ going to have butterflies over this. She is far too exhausted for her stomach to be doing flips, for her fingers to tingle with hopeful anticipation—and what if he _doesn't_ want to wander up here? What then? She traces the edge of the desk with an idle finger; at least she seems too tired for actual panic at the thought.

But what then? Would it all have been for nothing? And what if he's— _not_ , what if he's just something she's made up and clung to for the sake of survival, for having something to claim as her own that nothing and no one could take from her? What if she only loves the idea of loving him, instead of the man himself?

This is stupid.

They've talked, after all, since then, and he's said he's not seeing anyone and he cares and she _definitely_ heard him say "someone you love" in reference to, presumably, herself. He's still Kaidan, after all, and it's not like she needs anything more.

Well. Sleep. She needs to sleep. She needs to see that he's settled, that he's got somewhere to sleep, if he wants—

Not right away. He'll wander up, but not right away; she'll invite him, but not now. She's nervous and excited and _sure_ , and he's aboard her ship and it's not like he can get off while they're at FTL. She needs to sleep. He'll be there.

He's _here_.

She comes unglued from her chair and slinks her way to her bed, barely managing to kick off her boots before landing face-first in a pillow. She turns her head enough to steal a breath of recycled air; she sees him again on the wrong end of her gun, and again, coming aboard; she's asleep, dreaming of the stars streaking over her head.

 **o.O.o**

As soon as they come aboard someone flags Shepard with an urgent call in the QEC, and she barely flashes him a quick smile as she leaves his side, barely directs the—specialist, apparently, to give him a tour before she disappears through a door and leaves him standing awkwardly by the airlock. But she _does_ smile, and it steals his breath away.

"Major Alenko," says the specialist, her brow furrowed. "Have you ever been to Horizon, by any chance?"

"Horizon?" he says, startled, because he can't imagine why Shepard would have mentioned—

"I was visiting my parents when the Collectors attacked," she says. "Weren't you in charge of the installation of the GARDIAN lasers?"

"Oh. Yes. Are they—" he hesitates, and she waves him off.

"We all survived," she says. "Thanks to those lasers, I understand. So thanks for that."

"You're welcome," he says, still feeling as though he stands atop a thresher maw tunnel rather than the solid metal of the _Normandy_ 's deck, still feeling the absence of Shepard's smile. "And you are...?"

"Me? Shit." She straightens into a salute. "Specialist Samantha Traynor, sir. Would you like a tour of the ship?"

"I would," he says, returning the salute. "I haven't been aboard this one. Well," he amends, "not conscious, anyway."

"This—oh," she says, and then her eyes widen. " _Oh_. You're one of the heroes of the Citadel?"

"Something like that," he says, and picks a direction and starts walking, mostly so she'll stop staring at him. In any case, the movement startles her into following, and soon she's cheerfully talking his ear off as she shows him around.

Before Mars he'd barely had time to take in the shuttle bay, let alone the CIC or the crew deck, and his first impression now is how _roomy_ the ship feels, how even the Alliance doesn't seem to have figured out how to cram enough equipment into all the empty space. It would almost seem a luxury vessel—and when Traynor shows him the lounge, he almost forgets where he is—but for the crew's uniforms and the tension in the recycled air, the sense of purpose mixing with the threat of total annihilation in the straight lines of every salute. This is a crew that's come together, he thinks, watching sailors step out of their way without ever looking up from their assignments, catching snatches of conversation in the mess hall. Come together under the most desperate of circumstances, and survived even worse; and he feels his own absence keenly, the battles he's missed, the bonds forged while he idled in a hospital bed. He should have been here. He should have—

"And Engineering's on Deck Four," she says as they come back to the elevator, "and the Armory's down in the shuttle bay on Deck Five, but honestly I don't know much about either of them and right now Vega's probably in the middle of his exercise routine and he _hates_ being interrupted." Traynor pauses for breath. "Or perhaps it's only when I interrupt him. Anyway, I'll have someone see about putting you on the pod schedule—though if you're a major, maybe you ought to have a bunk?"

A bunk. A real _bunk_ , aboard a military starship. "Uh," he says.

"I mean you technically outrank the Commander," she says, stepping aboard the elevator. He follows, more for lack of anything better to do. "And she has a whole _bed_ to herself."

"She—" a _bed_ ? "—does?"

"Oh yes. Her quarters are deck one. I've seen it. It's nice. Not as many pillows as Liara's," she says, and the elevator doors open again. "But the fish tank is far more soothing than all those screens."

"Fish?"

"It sounds crazy, doesn't it? They were going to rip it out and replace it, but," and she waves a hand. "Didn't get that far on the retrofit."

A fish tank. Aboard a military starship. Again he feels how much he's missed, not just aboard this half-finished _Normandy_ but aboard the Cerberus vessel it had been, the people it's— _she's_ known and served with. A year of their lives, _missed_ , and suddenly he wants nothing more than to comb every inch of the ship until he finds her and makes her tell him everything, tells her everything in turn, until there's nothing missing, nothing between them but the future together, and—

"Major Alenko?" Traynor says tentatively, and he realizes he's mindlessly followed her to her station and is looming over her shoulder, staring at her screen without seeing it. He backs off immediately as she says, "I've sent the request to have you put on the duty roster. Is...there anything else?"  
"Do you know where the Commander is?" he asks.

"Um," she says, scrolling through something on her screen. "Looks like she's finished in the QEC...so no, I don't. EDI ought to, if you want to ask."

"All right," he says, straightening his shoulders, holding onto his eagerness with a chain rusty from disuse. "Where do I find EDI?"

Traynor gives him an odd look and says, "I mean, the cockpit, I suppose, but—"

"Thank you, Specialist," he says, unable to keep a grin of anticipation from his face as he turns away from her and makes his way to the cockpit. Crewmembers at their stations barely acknowledge him, although a passing corporal does snap a salute that he returns as he passes to the cockpit. The door slides open—

—and he instinctively snaps out with a fist, though he manages to keep his biotics from flaring with it. It connects with a _clang_ on a disturbingly familiar face, his last memory from Mars, jumbled with fear and adrenaline and a pain in his head far deeper than any migraine, and of course punching it doesn't do any good so he hops backward and—

"Major Alenko," it says as he draws his pistol (thank God they hadn't gone to the armory after all), "this is not necessary."

"Yeah?" he says, taking a bead on her forehead, but she doesn't move.

"I am not Dr. Coré," she says. "Or rather, I am not the synthetic model posing as a human doctor. I am EDI."

"EDI," he repeats. "So they what, reprogrammed you?"

"No," she says, her voice calm and almost soothing. "EDI stands for Enhanced Defense Intelligence. I am—"

"The _Normandy_ ," says a familiar voice behind her. "She's the AI behind the _Normandy_. She _is_ the _Normandy_. Did you say Alenko?"

"I did," EDI says, stepping aside and revealing the cockpit: bigger than the old one, and the seats look _much_ nicer. His pistol now points at the back of the pilot's chair; forcing himself to take a deep breath, he returns it to his belt. "I told you he was approaching and that I intended to greet him."

"Yeah, I know," Joker says, the brim of his ball cap peeking around the edge of his chair. "I figured it would freak him out. Get in here and close the door."

"The major has just recovered from a serious brain injury," EDI says reprovingly, her metallic form stepping to the co-pilot's chair with unnatural grace for a machine. Kaidan steps inside more clumsily, and the door shuts behind him. "We should not intentionally shock his system."

"Hey, if he can't handle you, he needs to get off the ship." Joker finally turns his chair around, and the first thing that strikes Kaidan is how much he _hasn't_ changed: a little thicker, maybe, but the beard is unfairly untouched by grey; the shadows under his eyes are a little darker, but that's true for everyone, and his eyes aren't quite so hollow as they'd been—last time.

Last time, when Shepard had been dead and he'd been—angry.

The mistrust in the pilot's eyes isn't exactly new, either.

"I can open the airlock at any time," Joker continues, still sizing him up; and so he holds as still as EDI had under his pistol. EDI, who is the _Normandy_. A conversation for another time. "So just let me know."

"I'm not going anywhere," he says, with far more bite than he intended; but he _means_ it, even if Joker's not the person he needs to tell.

Joker is, for his part, unfazed. "Good," he says, equally sharp. "It took you long enough to get here."  
"Yeah?"

"I'm just saying." For a moment, he thinks the pilot isn't going to push this—but of course he does; this is _Joker_. "You had the opportunity to come aboard—"

"A Cerberus vessel."

" _Shepard's_ ship," he says, and a muscle in his cheek twitches. "You think for a second this ship was more loyal to Cerberus than it was to her?"

"Technically—"

"Not now, EDI." Joker's glaring at him, but there's something odd to it, something Kaidan can't place.

"I couldn't leave the Alliance," he says, which sounds weak and hollow in his ears, echoing with _Shepard's ship_. "Not for Cerberus. Not for—"

"Bullshit."

"How was I supposed to know it wasn't a trick?" he demands. "A trap? That they hadn't— _done_ something to her? You swooped in on the heels of a Collector attack—for all I knew, you'd _caused_ it—"

"That was more likely the GARDIAN lasers," EDI volunteers.

" _Not now_ ," Joker hisses.

"You'd already joined," he says, shifting the blame. "You'd already given up on the Alliance."

"The Alliance had already given up on _me_ ," Joker says, jabbing a finger at his chest. "And you. And all of us. And especially _her_ , once they dropped the Reaper threat. I didn't owe the Alliance _shit_."

"Maybe you didn't," Kaidan says. "Maybe I didn't, either. But _Cerberus_?"

Joker's mouth opens and then abruptly, uncharacteristically shuts; he doesn't miss that EDI gives the pilot what he assumes is a curious look, and then Joker runs a hand over his face and blows out a breath and says, "Whatever. This is pointless, and anyway she agrees with you—"

"She—Shepard?" he says, startled.

"Yeah. She came back aboard after that and I was all ready to badmouth you, let her know everything—well, not what you said," and he stumbles over the words, and the old haunted hollow pain that flashes across his face tugs on an answering pain that still lingers in his own heart. "But as soon as I got started she just looked at me and said, 'He's an Alliance soldier,' and walked away."

"Oh," he says, and the answering pain mixes with pride and confusion and an entirely new pain and guilt, all drowning in _wonder_ , that she would still—and this is what love is, isn't it?

"Yeah. Look," Joker says, and the oddness in his glare returns and suddenly starts to make sense. "I don't know—I didn't know—look, I didn't _want_ to know what, if anything—it's the Commander's business, not mine, and so long as she lets me do my job I don't care—"

"Got it," Kaidan says, equally awkward.

"—but she's my commander—she's _my_ commander, got it?" Joker says. "And I have never seen her face the way it looked when she came back aboard after Horizon except for when she came dragging your unconscious ass in after Mars, and I—don't _ever_ ," and he jabs his finger for emphasis, " _ever_ , want to see her look that way again."

"Got it," he says, quietly.

" _Ever_ ," he repeats, crossing his arms. "And if I see it again and I find out it's your fault—and it _will_ be your fault—I will kick your ass out the airlock so fast you won't even have time to say _aye-aye, sir_."

"Aye-aye, sir."

"Even if it's your dead ass."

"Roger that."

"Good." Joker settles further into his chair. "She let you back aboard. Don't fuck it up."

"I don't intend to."

"Good."

There's a long pause, wherein Joker keeps glaring at him and it's still awkward, wherein part of him wants to slink away and hide until his embarrassment passes— _Joker_ , commenting on his love life—and another part of him is heart-hammeringly _eager_ , desperate to apologize, to heal old wounds, to revel in the wonder that she loves him as much as he still loves her, always has, always will, to put his hands—

"I am sure the major did not come here seeking a lecture on his personal life," EDI says, and the awkward cringing embarrassment takes over in full force.

"Yeah," Joker says, finally looking away, half-swiveling back to his displays. "Right. You need something?"

"Uh," he says, because now it just sounds lame and desperate and needy, "I was wondering if you knew where Shepard is."

And Joker _does_ laugh at him, turning the rest of the way around. "Nope," he says, still laughing.

"Ass," Kaidan says.

"The Commander is in her cabin," EDI says—and of course EDI knows, she's the _ship_. He looks to her, watching as her hands dance over the haptic displays, her eyes seeing who-knows-what. "Judging by her heart rate, breathing patterns, and brain waves, she is currently asleep. Would you like me to wake her?"

"What? No," he says, "no, no, no that's all right. Just..." He hesitates, but everyone present already _knows_ and he might as well. "When she wakes up—"

"She'll ask for you and EDI will tell her where you are," Joker says. "Ugh. Get a room."

"The Commander already has—"

"It's an expression, EDI."

"Right," Kaidan says. "Thanks."

"Whatever," Joker says, but he does take the time to give a half-wave. Kaidan returns it instinctively, then remembers the pilot can't see him; he takes a step backwards, and the door slides open, and so he slinks out of the cockpit with what remains of his dignity. By the time the door closes he's already fighting a grin again, fingers itching with anticipation and hope and excitement and he needs to find somewhere to just be, somewhere quiet where he can wait and _breathe_ , and wait.

He's aboard. He's not going anywhere.

 **o.O.o**

Shepard wakes up to...nothing, not an alarm or a knock at the door or the beep of a message or even Traynor informing her there's a call in the QEC, and for a moment she wonders if she's still dreaming, and then she's out of bed and throwing on her boots in a rush of adrenaline, a near-panic that someone's stormed the ship beneath her snoring nose. The door slides open—a good sign—and after a moment of impatience the elevator arrives, devoid of Cerberus troopers. She steps inside and says, "EDI?"

"Major Alenko can be found in the Starboard Observation Lounge," the AI answers, and Shepard's hand freezes over the deck selection panel.

"What?" she asks, stupidly.

"Jeff said you would want to know as soon as you awoke," EDI says, this time sounding slightly uncertain. "If he was incorrect—"

"What? No," she says, leaning against the elevator wall as the near-panic leaves her system—the ship is fine, EDI is fine, Joker's an ass, and Kaidan—

Well. Things are as they should be.

"I am glad to hear it," EDI says. "Is there anything else you require?"

For a moment she stares at the selection panel, unable to think of anything remotely appropriate, and finally she says, "How long until we make contact with the quarians?"

"Approximately twenty-two hours," EDI says. Time enough, Shepard thinks, to eat and _shower_ and—"Or," she continues, startling her again, "and I quote, 'as long as you need us to take, Commander.'"

"Tell Joker—" She bites off the first retort that comes to mind, swallows the second, and decides that discretion is the better part of valor. "Listen. You remember that conversation we had, way back, about protocols concerning my personal life?"

"Yes. I asked what your preferences would be, and you eventually told me, though I believe you considered it a mostly futile exercise."

Shepard squints in the speaker's direction. "Oh?"

"You said, and I quote, 'sure, in the unlikely event I ever have one.'"

"Oh."

"You also recited a list of what I presumed were remarks made by various people in your life commenting at one point or another about your lack of a personal life."

"I—"

"Speaking of, if you still have need of a 'little black dress,' I can certainly edit our last requisitions—"

" _EDI_ ," Shepard hisses, and then she presses the heels of her hands into her eyes and mumbles, "I do not need a little black dress."

"Shepard," EDI says, and she dares to sound _chiding_ , "every woman needs a little black dress."

Still staring into the blackness of her eyelids, she says, "I'm fairly certain those protocols involved _not_ telling Joker about the content of our conversations."

"Jeff has not said anything to me about little black dresses," EDI says. "I gathered this information based on my extensive study of human culture."

Silence follows this, and she puts a hand to the wall of the elevator to reassure herself that yes, she is still aboard the ship, although she's not entirely convinced this isn't a dream, after all. And then EDI says, "Perhaps I ought to acquire one for myself?"

"Hey," Shepard says, giving up, "go for it."

"Very well. I shall place my order next to yours—"

"I _don't need_ —"

"And you perhaps might like to know that for the duration of our conversation Engineer Daniels has been repeatedly pressing the elevator call button on Deck Four and cursing whomever is holding up the elevator and preventing her from reaching the showers. Do you have a destination in mind, or shall I send you to Engineering?"

She is now not so much leaning against the wall as she is slumping against it; at least she may maintain a modicum of privacy within her own mind, where she quietly curses artificial intelligence, synthetic lifeforms, her pilot, whomever came up with the phrase "little black dress," and her own pathetic transparency. "Deck Three," she mumbles in defeat.

"I'm sorry?"

"Deck Three," she repeats, and suddenly the elevator is moving and jolts her stomach and the damn butterflies are back in full force.

"Very well," EDI says, somewhat belatedly, she thinks.

"Hey, EDI," she says. "Do me a favor?"

"Certainly."

"Those personal life protocols?"

"Yes?"

"I'm trying to have one."

"Understood." The elevator stops, but the doors remain closed; Daniels is going to be _really_ pissed; and then EDI says, "I believe it is appropriate to wish you good luck."

"Thanks, EDI." And then she's free of the elevator and staring at the closed door of the Starboard Observation Deck and for a moment she's frozen, wondering—

She doesn't _have_ to wonder, not anymore. Just beyond the door lies the answers, the pieces of her life she's jealously guarded from afar, the lynchpin of her brightest moments and darkest days since she stepped aboard the first _Normandy_ , though she hadn't known it at the time. And now she has—twenty-two hours, the rest of her life, till the end of the galaxy as she knows it or perhaps just a little bit of eternity; however much time it is, it'll be enough; she doesn't need any—

Shit. She forgot to shower.

 **o.O.o**

He can't remember the last time he sat and looked at the stars.

This isn't the first time in recent memory he's had time to sit and think—seems he did nothing _but_ think, lying unsedated in a hospital bed—but aboard a ship the view is...different. And for a brief precious while, he has nothing to do; the commanding officer has to sign off on his duties, and she's asleep. And so he's been wandering the ship, checking out the armory, sampling the delights of the mess hall, encountering Dr. Chakwas and subsequently embarking on a long conversation about his recent medical history. She gives him his migraine medicine without prompting, though there's a bit of a shadowed look in her eyes as she suggests he save it for emergencies. The _Normandy_ might be on the front lines, but even she can't outrun the shortages forever. There's a war on, after all.

And yet, as he finds himself sitting on the incredibly comfortable sofa in the observation lounge, with nothing but the hum of the ship's engines and the occasional idle sniff from one of the other crew members enjoying their downtime in his ears, he finds it almost possible to forget, just for a moment.

The moment's immediately swallowed in memory, the awful throbbing buzz of the Reapers' lasers, buildings reduced not so much to rubble as to dust, the smoke and the screams and the chaos, too many fears for too many people and places to feel them as more than a jumble of panic held at bay by a near-decade of service and training, a near-lifetime of self-control. A world on fire, if silent from space; and the silent stars he stares at now are burning too. Funny how distance changes perspective; here, staring at the blackness between the stars, he feels the impossibility that even a war for the fate of the galaxy could ever hope to reach its skeletal fingers into every empty crevice. Machines never tire, never grow bored, but even the Reapers have missed things; there's hope in those empty spaces, waiting silently for someone to find it.

Might as well be the people aboard a silent ship.

It's been a _long_ time, he thinks. Funny and strange and little sad, that it's been so long, that the young man who even in the depths of his self-loathing and misery stared out a porthole on his way home from Brain Camp and thought _one day I'll be back out here_ grew into an old soldier too busy to give even the sky a passing glance. It's been—probably since his leave after Alchera, since all those nights spent sleeplessly wandering the tree in his family's orchard, staring up at clouded stars filtered through darkened leaves and wondering which would give out first, his consciousness or the bottle of whiskey in his fist. His father had mostly left him to his grief and his mom had tried to talk to him but even when he told her—bits, pieces, he couldn't _say_ it, not the enormity of the truth. Not the parts where he sat in the dirt and stared at the stars and thought about how much he'd wanted to bring his commanding officer here, to meet his family, to see the stars as he'd seen them when he was a boy listening to his father talk of sailing ships between them. How much he'd wanted to see _her_ stars; and how much he'd wanted to spend the rest of his life seeking out new ones with her. There was a whole galaxy to explore, and he'd wanted—

and he hasn't looked at the stars since, and yet they've gone on being brilliant and beautiful and burning, and—

The door slides open, and Shepard's standing on the threshold.

He knows without looking, feels her presence not only in the hum of her biotics but like a current under his skin, electrifying every inch of his body. He sits without moving, listening as the other crew member shuffles out with a presumed salute and a "Commander," to the rustle of her sleeve as she snaps a salute in return and then to the quiet click of her step as she approaches. He closes his eyes as she stops behind him, as she sighs, nervous and soft, as the silence between the stars stretches between them, as he soaks in the radiance of her warmth.

And then she says, "Hey."

He opens his eyes and tilts his head back to look at her, drinking in the sight of her damp hair and pink cheeks and hopeful eyes, and he swallows, the sight burning on its way down in all the best ways.

"Hey," he croaks, and clears his throat. Maybe he's a bit rusty.

"Hey," she echoes, this time with a faint smile, self-effacing. "This seat taken?"

"Only if you want it," he says, and she comes around the edge of the couch, settles next to him, and his arm's around her automatically, hand resting on her shoulder, and her head's resting on his shoulder and she's breathing and warm and alive and _here_.

She shifts a little, resettling her head, and says, "Seems comfortable."

"Well," he says, casual, nonchalant, "stay as long as you like." His fingers tighten their grip. "I'm not going anywhere."

She exhales a contented sigh, and he feels—something—slide away from her, a weight or a pressure or a worry; and later he'll ask, and she'll tell him. But for now she's melting against him and he's holding onto her and _this_ is why any of them are alive, why they're fighting, why he's never been able to let the darkness swallow him, no matter how close it came, even when she was dead and gone—because _this_ is stronger than death, burns hotter and longer than any star, a flame unquenchable; this moment, replicated on ships and in houses and sitting in the dirt on a thousand thousand planets, inimitable and ubiquitous; unique, and universal.

Stars above, but he loves her.

He loves her, and she loves him, and she's here and he's _here_ ; and here, together, their breath filling the empty spaces between the blazing stars in a galaxy on fire, for a precious, single moment of eternity, they're at peace.


End file.
